Colonialism, Environment and Tribals in South India,1792–1947

Velayutham Saravanan is Professor and Director at Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia (Central University), New Delhi, India. With interdisciplinary research interests, he has made significant contributions to the fields of economic history and environmental history, especially pertaining to South India of the late eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries as also the contemporary period. He has published more than 60 research articles in national and international journals and presented over 40 papers at national and international forums.

‘This important study brings together decades of assiduous research to provide key insights. It is essential reading for environmental and social historians of modern India, and should be useful to scholars of marginalized groups and environmental politics in other parts of Asia.’K. Sivaramakrishnan, Dinakar Singh Professor of India and South Asia, Yale University, USA‘Southern India has been inadequately researched in terms of work across the colonial period and into the present vis-à-vis forests and peoples reliant on or resident in or near them. Scheduled Tribes have had a rich and significant history of struggles in relation to land, labour and forests and Professor Saravanan has a complex, sophisticated approach drawing on archival work. A book that will evoke wide interest among scholars and informed citizens alike.’Mahesh Rangarajan, Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Ashoka University, Sonepat, India

• List of tables List of Abbreviations Preface  Acknowledgement  Introduction 1. Pre colonial tribal system (prior to 1793) 2. Geographical encroachment 3.  Colonial agrarian policies (1793 1872) 4. Colonial agrarian policies (1872 1947) 5. Commercialization of forests  6.  Commercial forest policy and tribal private forests 7.  Plantation collision and appropriation of tribals 8.  Impact of external factors Conclusion  Bibliography  Glossary  Index